[VideoView]

Dipl.-Vw. Dr. Ludwig Steiner

Disposession and restitution in South Tyrol
interviewer:
Ruth Deutschmann
photography:
Benjamin Epp
copyright location:
Wien
date of recording:
2008-04-29
English translation by:
Sylvia Manning - Baumgartner
Italian translation by:
Nicole D´Incecco
event
[1923-09-03] $child2[$event_label] $child2[$event_text]
event
[1935-03-07] Expropriation - Bolzano Royal Decree by which the expropriation procedures for the creation of the industrial zone will be established in Bolzano.
place of recording
$child2[$rel_i18n_id][0]
???iuimd_video_v_zeit_zuordnung_en???:
1923
transcription:
Quite a few things are a bit peculiar in South Tyrol. For example: Land which had been used for military purposes at the beginning of the 1920s is being restituted. However it isn't offered or given to the previous owners. At best they can apply for it offering to pay the current market value. That idea of restitution doesn't exist in Austria. Thank God, I must say. Why do you think that's how it is? Well, that's difficult to answer. Of course they had somehow gotten used to it. Just imagine: land was dispossessed in 1922/1923 and in compensation they received Italian state securities which were worth less than the paper they were printed on. But it has taken from about 1923/1924 to today. So you forget how things came to pass - and what it felt like. The land is simply gone. The third generation maybe doesn't feel the same anymore, We experience other situations too, when it comes to the restitutions. Especially many of the third generation believe they have a natural right to their grandparents' property which was dispossessed. And they fight for it. That has never happened in South Tyrol.